Dan Pulcrano is a geographic domain pioneer, and Ron Jackson’s DNJournal has an in-depth article about Dan and how he was one of the first print media publishers to realize the significance of the Internet and take advantage while the opportunity was there. Dan made a gamble based on his research and gut instinct, and that gamble has paid dividends.
While traditional print media outlets are struggling, Dan has amassed one of the strongest geographic domain portfolios. Geographic domain names are powerful marketing tools, and Dan owns one of the finest geographic domain portfolios, made up of 20 of the largest 30 cities in the United States, including LosAngeles.com, Philadelphia.com, SanFrancisco.com, and Dallas.com.
After you read this article, you will probably realize why I went out and purchased Lowell.com and Salinas.com for development, and why I will always consider buying a city .com domain name.
Dan Pulcrano's Geographic Domain Excellence
Wire: Threats to the Domain Industry
This morning’s article in Domain Name Wire is an important read for anyone who has money invested in domain names. There are many serious threats to our industry, and if we don’t take some sort of action, the threats could be detrimental to the survival of this industry. When significant money is being made in an industry, there will always be outsiders who want to get their hands on some of the money, and if we don’t get together as an industry, it will be much easier for them to do it.
On a personal note, I am a Professional Member of the Internet Commerce Association, and I encourage everyone with the financial means to join at a level that is comfortable. I’ve met Michael Collins, the Director of the ICA, and I know he is working tirelessly to help protect the industry. The sooner we band together and protect our assets, the better it will be for everyone in the industry.
Rumor Has It…
Rumor has it that Internet domain mogul Rick Latona will be going live on his new blog very soon at RickLatona.com. Rick’s company has been making big waves recently with his “Daily Domains” subscription email, selling high value domain names at great prices. His sales have been peppered across DNJournal’s Weekly Sales Report of late, and it’s sure to continue.
netRocket Reaches Milestone
netRocket, an online bookmark scheduling service recently passed the 100,000 bookmarks milestone. This is huge considering the company recently went live. The upward growth is sure to continue as the amount of information and information sources on the Internet grows. The company made news at last month’s DomainFest domain auction by paying over $300,000 for the domain name Bookmarks.com. netRocket’s service is perfect for domain investors looking to track expired domain auctions and other time-sensitive bookmarks.
Congratulations to the team at netRocket for reaching this great milestone!
Importance of Maintaining Liquidity
In difficult financial times and tough market conditions, it is very important to maintain a portfolio of liquid domain assets that could be sold very quickly if necessary. Two and three letter .com (LL.com & LLL.com) names, strong dictionary .com terms, city/geographic terms and some numeric domain names are considered liquid domain assets.
There are reasons for maintaining solid liquidity, other than having bills to pay. For one, other people may need to start selling their liquid assets, and if you are in the right place at the right time – and you have the capital to make the purchase, you could benefit. Additionally, it costs quite a bit of money to develop and maintain a website. If you need to finance a web project, you may need the cash in short order.
When you evaluate whether your portfolio has enough liquidity, think about
Before You Develop Domain Names
If you are like many other domain investors, you probably have quite a few domain names with an idea of how to develop each of them – or a thought about what type of website each could become. As mentioned on this blog and on other blogs, development is difficult. If you are strongly thinking about developing (and not just contemplating), I would like to offer a few suggestions to help you decide which name(s) to develop and how to plan it out.
1) Review your portfolio and identify your best domain name – either the category killer name or a great niche name. Determine whether you think this name is worth spending between $5,000 – $100,000+ for a functioning website (depending on how well-functioning you want it). IMO, to spend money to develop a domain name, you either need a great new idea for your website to attract visitors or your domain name is the category killer name that people type-in expecting to find information on the subject. Honestly, if you don’t have either, you probably shouldn’t spend a lot of money developing the name. Don’t fret – just spend the extra money to buy one of these names instead of 500 fresh registrations!
2) Write an outline of how you see the finished product.